Low temperature specimen carriers, such as cryopreservation devices, are used in the field of assisted reproductive technology (ART) to store and preserve living reproductive cells (e.g., oocytes, embryos, and blastocysts). Cryopreservation refers to a process where cells are preserved over extended periods of time by cooling to sub-zero temperatures. For example, a cryopreservation device can house and support cells undergoing vitrification, which is the rapid transition of a substance from a liquid phase to a solid phase (e.g., glass) without the formation of ice crystals.
Vitrifying reproductive cells using a cryopreservation device includes immersing the cells in a vitrification medium and loading the cells, suspended in a volume of the vitrification medium, onto a support member of the cryopreservation device. The support member may then be capped and plunged into a container of cooling medium (e.g., liquid nitrogen), causing the cells loaded thereon to rapidly cool to a glass state before ice crystals can form within the cells. The cryopreservation device can be stored in the cooling medium until the cells are ready to be used in reproductive procedures. At that time, the cells, which have been preserved in a viable state, can be thawed via standard warming protocols in which the cryopreservation device is removed from the cooling medium and the support member is uncapped to provide access to the cells.